A crown of roots and ice
by Morpheewideawake
Summary: In the night's dark, through the cold wind, Bran looks for the dead now relieved of their curse. A ghost seems more familiar than the others, though he doesn't remember her from his past.
1. Prologue

Bran looked toward the icy horizon that was expanding before his eyes. Darkness had surrounded the castle of Winterfell many hours before winter had come with it. The castle was sleeping in the exaltation of their victory. Memories of his young time flowed into his mind briefly, as peaceful snow was falling upon Winterfell. His eyes looked into the night, the castle of Winterfell was lighted by the light of the moon, and some torches inside the occupied chambers.

The night was still young, but the battle was fierce, the people need to rest and recover, grieve. Bran knows, he saw it. After the fall of the night king, it's the only thing they can do. They're not prepared for the second war that is to come. From where he sits, Bran can remember all that once was in Winterfell, since its creation. The wall that once stood high against the harsh wind of winter, and the happiness of his ancestors living in peace between in its center. Bran can see their pale figures slowly reenacting their past lives.

He's not begetting a fantasy. Bran sees memories of times where people were happier. Winter had raped every smile on the face of the living. The sepultures of the dead have bent with it, so now they roam free, walking their world once more, for the last time. He sees mothers and children embracing each other, brothers and sisters greeting one another happily, Bran understands that life after death is not given to those who are buried. He sees their forme vanish in the dark of the night one after the other, as they figure out how to leave the world of the living. His eyes diverged from the ground to look for the horizon and the sun that is slowly rising, nights are shorts in the north, and morning is still far.

Bran sees a form that is yet to disappear in the dim light of the morning. He can see her eyes as if she was standing in front of him. Dark brown, an ocean of malicious stars that shines carefully. In the smile she holds up toward him, Bran can see the knowledge she had of him. Her lips moved, but the cold wind took the words from Bran before they could reach his ears. She blinked, her dress was torn in many places, he could see the holes she was proudly harbouring. The early morning sun was reflecting upon her dark hair, making the red in them shine even brighter. A delicate crown made out of tangled roots and some ice was resting upon her head.

She smiled at him, one of her hand passing through her hair. Bran's heart skipped a beat. It wasn't his emotions, for it had been a long time since he felt anything, those emotions were older than he was, they came from beneath his own knowledge, from the firsts Sighted. The ghostly form of the girl he watched from his window was so old that she came from the very first generation living between the walls of Winterfell. She touched her forehead, where a crystal of ice was resting with a finger, a knowing smile was illuminating her face. The wind blew again, taking her form away as she waved at Bran one last time.

Bran could feel his heart crushing as if it was the first time he was seeing death. His palms can feel the wood of his chair as well as the cold wind outside, but he mostly feel the hollow now present in his heart. A crow called in the night the croaking echoed within the walls of the castle and deep into the very soul of the once-was-Stark. A mokering sound for his grief, he doesn't even know why he feel so alone at the moment, for it was a feeling he thought he had under control. The roots-crowned girl with dark eyes is still smiling before his eyes, a memory that doesn't belong to him, and leaves the three-eyed raven alone to his fate once more. After all, he mostly lived in the past. His life wasn't really his, as he knew all of the history behind it. Only the girl remained a mystery.

His hand released his seat from the grasp he had on it. The sun was shining upon the snow, before his eyes, a see of gold and white was expending without end. Bran doesn't move to his bed, it's to late now, or to early. Plus he doesn't really want to do anything anymore. All he wants is to know the name of the brown-haired girl with a cunning smile and sharp eyes, maybe, if he could recall where his memory last had her, he could feel complete again. All he could remember of her was the smile on her face and the feeling of roots upon his head, like a dirty crown resting at the end of his hair.


	2. Her of the Saltcliffe island

A crown of roots and ice

pt.2

She was a small girl living in a big man's world. While she was excited to travel North, enjoying the change of scenery, her father didn't experience the same joy as she did. She had more liberties now that her mother stayed in the castle of her brother, in the Vale. She was too sick to go north, and someone had to stay with the younger children. It was a wonder that her mother let her travel with her Lord Father, accompanying her older brothers in their trail of war. She didn't care about how much farther North she was going to end up, she only wanted to be free. Their lord told her about how much land there was up North and how freely she would be riding if she wanted to join them. She was still too young to understand why they were riding North in the first place.

Her father told her that they were returning home, but home for her was South and near the water. She long preferred to walk in the sand, her toes in the cold water looking at the baptism going, carefully praying with the men of the castle too. She didn't really like the look of the white tree bark and red leaves of the Heart trees the Northmen liked so much. They were scary. Even if her friends with the green and grey-ish skin she had made in the forest told her stories about gods and ghost living inside and granting wishes if she prayed hard enough. They tried to sound reassuring, but sometimes, when the night was dark and cold and that animals were walking near the tents, they would come back into her head and haunt her for the night. But when it was Bran, the one her father, her brothers and the other soldiers with them called The Builder that was narrating the stories she liked them better than the ones about her god.

Brandon was truly a builder, for he was making plans to raise a big castle and a wall to stop intruders and Icemen from entering their lands. Her father had shown her where the castle Bran would build was to be on the lowland they were camping on. It was near a forest going from dark brown and green to red and white. It was in the same forest where the snow and the trees were only making one that she found her friends. They would play and run and jump and climb and dance with her when her brothers were to busy for her or when her scepta wasn't paying close attention to her. She would tell them about everything and they would listen and they would tell her tales about the very first king in the North and explain the war when she would run out of conversations. She would also tell them about her fear of her future wedding to their leader.

'' Because he's all ol' an' grey, an' I have yet to bleed see…''

They didn't seem to understand why she had to be bleeding to get married, for they had all see her blood when she would scrap her knees falling. She didn't know either, to be honest, nobody wanted to tell her why. He mother had told her that it was because she would be ready to be married and bear children to life. But she didn't want to bear children to life. She wanted to run and jump and dance and climb all she wanted.

She's nine years old, and her father had already promised her hand to Brandon -The Builder- of the Stark family. He was much older than her, with seven and ten year names days more than she had. He wasn't playing with wood swords and riding poneys anymore like the younger boys would do all day long. He was standing tall, just like her lord father, with his dark brown hair slowly turning grey with the years and the cold. He didn't run much and preferred to talk low with the others when she would come near.

She too, slowly, was starting to change. Her body was forming slowly, her breast was enlarging, so were her hips. But she didn't bleed. Her father refused her to run and jump and climb and dance where he or her septa could not see her anymore. All the friends she had in the encampment were starting to learn about motherhood and embroidery. What she wants to do is ride and walk through the woods and good to her green and grey-ish friends in the forest. She knows that she'll have to stop playing soon and that terrifies her. She doesn't want to grow up and start acting like a lady if it's to be married to Brandon the Builder, who does have a reputation about violence and women, though she's not sure if they go together.

On her tenth names day, she starts to pray. ''My father and brothers are righteous, they go on your calls, Oh Drowned One. Never they asked for something in return or to be graced by something after their actions. I ask for their protection tonight and I dare be selfish and ask for more time. Give me the possibility to live for my own before I start living for another.'' She spends hours at night talking to the Drowned God, and the Old Gods of the Forest, asking them to be kind and listen to what she asking.

The other women pray for Bran, but she doesn't, she never pray for him. She's angry with him, to have to wed him so her father can be at peace. Creating an alliance with the newly found Stark family is the job that her lord father gave her, she hates it. The week following her name days celebration, a letter comes from the Vales announcing the death of her mother. Her father closed himself even more after that and her brother Walton sits her down to talk about the matter. She cries and cries but nothing works. She asks the Drowned God one last time why he would take her so suddenly, while she hasn't seen her mother for months. It's the following month that she starts bleeding. The septa try to reassure her, but it only gives her more thing to panic over. She was frantic about her father knowing her new state. Scared of her father's reaction. She was scared he would want to marry her off in the next weeks.


	3. From a girl to a woman

The snow was hard under her feet. Her dress was not comfortable either; The pale grey gown trailed behind her as she meandered by her older brother. A nine-headed snake brooch held her hair up in a tight braided bun, letting down only enough of them to hide the back of her neck. The black nine-headed serpents sigil of her family embroidered on her dress, contrasting against the pale silver colour of the Saltcliffe house. Her cloak was heavy on her shoulders and when she entered the Godswood, she saw Brandon Stark standing tall by the heart tree. Her father was near him. She felt her heart drop to her stomach, trying to flee by her heel. Her father's men assisting the ceremony chanted their family motto once, loud enough to make the birds of the weirdwood fly away in fright. ''From the waves, we rose!'' The sound of the bird's wings made her heart flutter. She too wanted to flee more than anything now.

Brandon was twenty-eight years of life now. He was looking at her without a smile on his face, tall like a giant and dark as the night. His hairs in a bun just like hers reflecting the light of the fading sun with his strand of silver and his beard too was braided. He had exchanged the usually black cloak and clothes for the dark grey and white colours of his family banner. When Walton and she reached their father and Brandon, their lord father walked before them.

''Who comes before the Old Gods this day?''

''Meira, of the House Saltcliffe'' stated her brother '' comes here to be wed. A woman grown and flowered, trueborn and noble. She comes to beg the blessings of the Gods. Who comes to claim her?''

Brandon took a step toward her and spoke.

'' Brandon, of House Stark, heir of the Starks and Lord of Winterfell. Who gives her?''

Once again, her brother spoke.

''Walton, of the House Saltcliffe, who is her brother.''

Her brother didn't hesitate over his words, as if he had practiced saying them over and over in his head. Maybe it was because she was nothing more to him than a disposable woman, she couldn't say. She didn't really want to find out either. The cold wind was piercing through her cloak and she tried to ignore a shiver. Her lips, she could feel it, were turning blue from the cold of the soon-to-come night. Her father broke her from her thinking.

''Lady Meira, will you take this man?''

Her mouth went dry, and her lips seemed to have forgotten how to move, but they said the words even though she didn't feel them get out of her mouth. ''I take this man.''

Walton smiled at his sister gently, taking her hand to put it in Brandon's. He left her to walk with her now-husband toward the heart tree to kneel and pray. So she did. She prayed the Old Gods to set her free form this miserable life she was to live. Controlled and restricted to bear and raise children she didn't want to have. The wind and the last songs of the bird before the night were the only sound to echo. She prayed for her mother to give her strength for what was to come when she felt that the Old Gods were not to answer. She didn't pray the Drowned God, for she hoped not to need it tonight. When she rose from the ground, Brandon took off her cloak and gave her his, patting away one stray of her hair that had taken place before her eyes. ''Take this cloak, you look cold and winter is coming.'' He took her hand in his and guided her out of the wood slowly, under the scrutinizing eyes of the soldiers assisting the wedding.

Her heart was hammering in her head, in her throat, in her soul. She couldn't hear anything else but her heart pounding. She could feel her blood run cold in her vein, her feet, it seemed, were not touching the ground any more than she was walking. She felt like everything was a dream; she would wake up in her mother's arms. She would wake up and cry about how this dream had been a nightmare, that she woke up just in time before her end. She felt like dying; The earth was to open beneath her feet and take her whole before her lord husband could make her completely his.

His room was large and empty. Fur was on the floor, under the bed so it wouldn't be so cold when they walked upon it. A fire was burning in the room and someone had set two chairs near the fireplace, she didn't really know if they had to be there or if the chair had somehow lost their way, too. Brandon let go of her small hand. Her father, Walton and Urion, her brothers and a maester came in the room with them. Brandon smiled at her before walking to reach the back of her gown. He took him, or now her, cloak embroidered with the pale grey direwolf of the Stark family from her shoulders. Her back was nude; Only her neck was covered and attached, from her back to the start of her bottom, her skin was offered to the cold air.

She heard clothes hitting the ground, and felt an ice-cold hand touch her neck. She shivered. Her dress loosens suddenly, making her jump slightly, the dress falls on the ground, pooling over her ankles. She took a sharp breath and closed her head off what was happening to her. She imagined herself on the shore of the Saltcliffe, her home, in a grey and black dress, pledging allegiance to an Iron Island husband just like she wanted. She would drink wine and eat fish. She would bathe in the sea and be offered to her husband as a pearl, a gift from the Drowned God to their land, or so told the legend. She felt a pressure on the small of her back, and she came back to reality. She entered the bed slowly.

In the night's dark, after the bedding ceremony, when Brandon Stark left the bed to sit near the fire, leaving her alone in the fur. She watched the stone ceiling absently. Her brother Urion had left under her pillow a bottle of she knew was seawater. And in the cold's silence summer, the North was experiencing, she prayed, opening the bottle.

"Let Me your servant be born again from the sea, as you were. Bless me with salt, bless me with stone, bless me with steel. What is dead may never die.'' She poured a small portion of water in her hand and took it to her forehead slowly, murmuring the rest of the ceremonial baptism. '' What is dead may never die, but rise again, harder and stronger.'' She had no one to execute the ceremony for her, but knowing she died that night, she needed to feel comforted by something that felt like home.


End file.
